Page 13 of Wicked Tides
I came to the edge of the ship first and peeked over onto the deck. I saw only a couple of men braving the abusive wind to tie down cargo. I rolled over the railing into a crouch, pulling my knife from my armband. The others crept onto the ship behind me and scattered in two directions.
There was no singing in the midst of a storm, but it did not matter. These men would die fully aware before they were devoured.
~ 6 ~
Dahlia
I saw my corpse and from its
mouth came the hate of a thousand dead
~Ghosts of War
The storm seethed. The ship rocked. Men were screaming as we painted the deck with their hot blood. One by one, we cut them open, spilling their soft insides on the floor. The two on deck were first. I opened one’s throat with my knife, silencing him forever before he knew we were even there. Meridan finished the other one quickly, covering his mouth with one hand to muffle his screams as her teeth tore a hole in his jugular.
She favored the taste of the freshest blood.
She looked up at me with blood-smeared lips. “The taste of hemsbane is faint. We can feed on them.”
I noded before I forced my way into the captain’s quarters and butchered the man sleeping there. I did not even stop to see what he looked like.
Kea and Voel were already slithering down into the bowels of the ship and soon, Meridan and I followed, picking off anyone we foundon the way to the forecastle. We killed as quietly as we could, certain we’d find a majority of the crew below deck. Waking them all at once would be a chaotic bloodbath. The bloodbath part I could deal with. The chaos I could do without.
I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
On the way, we passed stacks and stacks of cargo tied down with rope nets. Wooden boxes, barrels, and large rolls of furs, leather, and cloth were piled to the ceiling. Sinking the ship after the slaughter would deprive the coastal towns of large amounts of trade goods. A hint of something resembling happiness teased my thoughts.
We searched every room we passed, getting a feel for the kind of ship we were about to sabotage, but we couldn’t find anything important enough for a ship to be braving a storm and rocky shores to transport.
Up ahead, the cabin was filled with at least twenty men. I could smell their filth and hear their deep breathing. They were fast asleep and perfect for the killing. I turned my knife backward in my hand, preparing to stab each man in the heart, whether he was awake or not.
“Dahl,” Meridan whispered, grabbing my attention.
She was standing in the doorway of a dark room, her white eyes blinking with confusion.
“Should we…” she paused a moment. “Should we kill these ones, too?”
I furrowed my brows and peeked past her into the dark chamber. Stepping forward, I could smell a plethora of other bodies, but ale and foul breath weren’t prominent on the ones in the other room like they were on the crew.
I let my eyes adjust to the darkness and found two holding cells with wooden, barred gates. Inside, I could see six forms. Two of them were young women, their round faces filled with innocence and youth. Perhaps teenagers. The other four were children. Young children. They’d all been stripped of any real clothing and I knew well enough that humans weren’t as tolerant of the frigid, harsh temperatures at sea.In the back corners of the cells were thin blankets, all damp and filthy, for the girls to sleep on.
The group was huddled up close in a cluster as far from the bars as they could get. I knew they couldn’t see us in the dark like I could see them. Perhaps they saw Meridan’s glowing freckles and silvery hair, but me? I was dull in the night with inky hair and dark eyes. I could look upon them and know they weren’t looking back.
But that made it easy to see their fear. Their fatigue and sadness. The bruises on their skin and the cracks in their dry lips.
“Well?” Meridan asked.
Empathy for humans was hard to come by among my kind. They weren’t worth a thought, especially in my experience.
But they were kids. Young kids. I stared at them, finding it hard to imagine my blade sinking into their malnourished, weakened bodies.
Looking back, all three of my sisters were watching me, waiting for my decision. The fact they had to ask me what to do made it obvious that they had reservations as well.
But the last time I trusted my sympathies, it destroyed my life… and the lives of others.
I glanced back at the kids and watched their skinny limbs tremble in the dark.
I was a killer. I enjoyed killing men. Pirates. Hunters.
